Impressions of a township school
By Anne Sejer Madsen

During my first internship in South Africa I stayed at Kabana a township in the townships of Port Elizabeth. It was an incredible experience in a personal as in a professional aspect. Especially the interaction and warm welcoming from teachers and learners was overwhelming.

Sabine in front of the township school

The physical state of the school premises

- Disillusions and decay

When we arrived at the school everything seemed a bit chaotic, we didn’t know exactly where to go and what to do with our self. However everyone greeted us with smiles and curious looks. Soon a charismatic woman that seemed to have some extent of authority among the teachers and learners (maybe the vice principle?) took us under her wing and started showing us the schools facilities. While we were guided around she told us the recent events that had let to the miserable conditions of the recent school. The high school, that now shared facilities with a primary school, used to be a separate school. However, the former buildings were in serious need for repairs, and the school was, as any other township school, always in lack of fonds. When rough winds was blowing from the sea, bending trees and bushes by its will, the learners and teachers could literally feel the neglected old building sway and moan from the outside pressure. One morning when they arrived, the building had simply collapsed. The government repositioned them at this current school where they would have to share facilities with a primary school. This was only temporary arrangement, but as the years passed the teachers and staff realized that within every golden assurance from the state were nothing more than empty promises. Never have I seen a more disillusioned man as the principle of the school. He was in building a relatively big man, black middle-aged man, squeezed into a tiny little room no bigger than a bathroom. Over his desk there was a huge whole in the ceiling, and papers was lying everywhere. He had no draws or shells, so millions of notes and folders piled up from his small desk in an obscure archiving system. He was heartbreaking as he sat in his office with hanging shoulders and a disillusioned voice telling us indirectly, that he had no more fight left in him. He didn’t know how to better the current situation of the school. Every time he had tried to seek founds or complaint at the educational sector, his voice got lost in the process, forgotten or ignored. As a result he was now trying to complete a master in economic at the university ass an attempt to better his own opportunities to seek another job. Depressing.

As we walked around on the premises of the school it was the physical neglect of repairs and investments was obvious. Broken windows in almost every classroom. Perforated ceilings wherefrom the water would drip down on rainy days. Doors without handles and a bathroom that looked and smelled more like a stable than a facility used by humans. There were no curtains, so the learners that were placed next to the windows would when the sun shined brightest shadow their eyes from the side with a book. Often the temperature inside the classrooms was freezing. Everyone, learners as teachers would be fully dressed in outerwear during class at cold days to keep warm. I went to the extent of wearing woolen skiing underwear, 2 jumpers, 2 jackets a scarf and a hat. How can one learn in such an environment, where you have to spend half of your energy just keeping warm or blocking out the sun? Often the children came to school without haven eaten breakfast, because they neither had the time nor the money. Many of the children had to walk far from the outskirts of the townships to get to the school, which meant that there were only half full classes on rainy days. As an addition there were a lot of problems with abuse, drugs, violence etc. in the area. Knowing all this it seemed as a miracle that the children did manage to function in the school at all.

A view over the township

Teachers and learners

- A heartwarming welcome

However the learners and teachers didn’t seem to be that affected by the physical state of the school. They were positive and curious (at least in their interaction with us). While we were guided around the first day on the school premises the vice principle would introduce us to every class at the high school. When we entered the room all the students would get up in standing position to greet the teacher. Afterwards she would introduce us and make a small cheer to make them shout greetings to welcome “Miss Anne” and “Miss Sabine” as loud as they could. Everyone seemed to have a good time, laughing, joking and welcoming us.

Sabine, the vice principle and me

We were offered to get our own office, but we asked if it was possible if we could join the teachers at the staffroom instead. The staffroom was big, bright room with nine tables organized in a horseshoe-formation. At each table was placed to teachers, and as at the principal’s office the general archiving system seemed to be random piling of papers all over the place. The teachers were separated by choice in a man section and a female section. As one of the female teachers said with teaching eyes; “the men had grown tired of all their talking and joking”. And talk and joke they did! Never have I experienced a more festive staffroom. Dancing, singing, talking loudly at once, joking and more spontaneous singing and dancing. We were placed at different tables sharing the space with different teachers. I sat next to Thelma, a middle-aged small black woman with a winning humor and a warm heart. We became quite good friends with all of the teachers. In every break they would learn us a little Xhosa (the native language), a song or introduce us to some traditional food that they had brought for us to taste. It was a quite overwhelming and heartwarming experience.

Tembi, Thelma and 2 other teachers from the high scool

The staffroom

General didactic reflections and observations

- A school system reproducing a society no longer existing?

The first couple of days we spent observing different classes in different subjects. Everyone was eager to kidnap us into their specific class to show how their way of teaching. Our overall impression of the township school were that the school system in general seemed to be characterized by a one way communicating learning style based on a deductive view upon learning. The teachers were considered the only source of knowledge and the students were forced to be passive receivers. There were very few cases of authentic oral interaction between students and teachers. There seem to be no general structure of the lessons and the content seemed random. A lesson would start when the teacher arrived at the class, often 10-15 min late. The class would then get to their feet and greet the teacher until he asked them to sit. Without any further introduction or explanation the teacher would start teaching a given subject. As an example we experienced a “life science” lesson (biology), where the teacher after she had arrived simply just starting writing formulas at the blackboard, educating the learners by monolog. It took me several minutes to figure out, even as a biology teacher, what the lesson was about. The teacher kept using biological terminology, never explaining in everyday language what it meant. She used words as “saccharides”, “glucose”, “lactose” etc. and did only explain that she was talking about forms of sugar fifteen minutes into the class. The only interaction between the teacher and the class was when she asked rhetorical questions which the learners would answer “yes” or “no” with one voice. A general pattern of interaction was also that the teachers would make a small pause in the middle of a word wating for the class to complete the word with her. Sometimes it was due to repeat a specific terminology, other times it just seemed random. The teacher could for instance say ; “the mitochondria produces ener - (pause)- gy” or in more random cases “the body is fanta – (pause) - stic”. The learners were then supposed to complete the word “fantastic” by saying “stic”. This seemed very odd to me. What was the purpose of that kind of interaction? I can maybe understand it when it is a matter of terminology. One must remember that this was a school which manly hosted Xhosa speaking learners. This meant that the challenge of learning terminology must be twice as difficult to the learners because they were educated in their second language – English. This thesis is supported by the fact that the teachers occasionally broke into Xhosa to explain or repeat difficult passages. Seen in this perspective it makes senesce to let the learners say the words aloud to make them get use to the sounds and feeling of the word. However, if that was the main object of the concept wouldn’t it be more effective to let the learners repeat the whole word instead of just finishing a half of it? Most of the time was what the repeated just random as in the example with “fantastic”. A lot of the time the teacher would ask genuine questions, but instead of waiting for an answer she would just be answering the question herself.

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One was left to wonder how much the learners actually remembered or understood after such a lesson. Would they be able to answer if one asked them to explain the basic functions of the different organs of a cell? Would they be able to make the connection to what consequences the theory had for their everyday life? I couldn’t help but wonder; were these young people being educated for? It seems to me as if the education system is based upon a hierarchy where students should learn not to question authorities and simply accept the given order of life, reproducing knowledge without critical reflection. Does the school reproduce skills from a system no longer existing? - Skills that seems to be outdated in a society that has changed both in way of govern and social conscience? The way of educating that I meet at the township school teaches the young generation neither to be a part of a modern work market where teamwork and communication are essential nor to prepare them for participating in a democratic society where democratic dialog and independent thinking is required. South Africa is a new democracy, but does the school reproduce an old hierarchic system? If one wants to educate the youngsters for a democratic active life I see some serious challenges and need for reforms in the given school systems way of thinking or defining education.